Games

Another Great Sell-Off

| #controllers | #greatselloff | #videogames |


This page is a work in progress. I will be adding to it for days or weeks.

People, like times, change. I’m not the same person I was five years ago, never mind 20 or 30 years past, which is when I bought most of this stuff. I always wanted to just dive through all this amazing art and entertainment, like Scrooge McDuck through his money. I bought it all for me. I bought most of it to play, I bought some of it just to take apart and see what was inside. Some I bought because they were cheap, or because they were rare, or because – at the time – no one else had heard of it and I wanted to share whatever I could.

But I bought it for me and I never used most of it after too short a time. I always held on to it, thinking I’d have friends over and we’d talk about how cool this stuff was and play the games and generally share the excitement.

But adulting is hard. Time is always short, schedules never match, and now I’ve moved into a new house, shuffling the same tubs and crates and boxes into it that I did the last one, and the one before that, and before that, and those times I moved house in Japan, and Canada before that. Here, then, are many of my treasures, my prized possessions, that I bought for myself and held on to and never used.

Here, then, are my collected arts and toys and games, the things that made me happy for so long.

I’ll try to group them, somehow. I’ll try to make them easy to find (click the #greatselloff hashtag). I’ll try to tell you why I bought it, what it meant to me, and what its story is.

Here, then, are those things, their stories, and your chance to be part of their story.

Pricing

  • All prices are AUD.
  • Pricing is based on -sold- prices on Ebay, Yahoo, forums and wherever I can find sold pricing. Current listings and asking prices are often unreasonable, so I didn’t pay attention to them. I went high where my stuff is mint, but some of it might turn out to be less great, and the price will reflect that when I dig into the items individually.
  • For the most part I stuck to ~80% of the max prices I saw. I need money but I’m not in it for the money.
  • Some of my stuff is so uncommon prices aren’t available.
  • Everything is negotiable. If I’m way off base, do tell me.
  • I am accepting trade offers. Mostly arcade stuff. I don’t have a want list, but I like shmups.

Condition

I am using a simple 3-tier condition rating system:

  • A – Minty fresh, like new. A tiny number of minor imperfections.
  • B – Good shape, normal signs of wear for a 30 year old game.
  • C – Yeah look, maybe I dropped it, or it was stored with my sandpaper collection. It ain’t BAD but it ain’t GREAT.

Navigation

Click here for a huge WIP list of stuff, and estimated pricing. This isn’t nearly all of it, I’m adding to it as I find stuff.

Controllers

I have a weird thing for controllers. I love them, I wanted to own them all and see what the differences were. I wanted to have one of each weird kind so I couldn’t ever find a game I couldn’t play. Pads and sticks, fishing controllers and light guns, paddles and pachinko… cranks. I love ’em.

But I played these things less than I wish I had. It’s a hard thing to admit but I’ll never put as much time into the stuff I have as I always wished I could.

So.

ASCII Pad FT and FT2

I love these ASCII pads. I had a whole bunch of them at one point, including a limited edition smoked clear one from a Japanese magazine. Famitsu, I think? Maybe one of the Dreamcast mags. But it was defective in design, unlike the retail versions. So I sold it years ago and kept these. They’ve both been sitting unusued in storage for more than 20 years.

The Playstation FT2 pad doesn’t look like it’s ever been used, and I think I’m the only person to ever take it out of the box. I bought it used in Japan, where people will often describe brand new stuff as used just so you don’t have unreasonable expectations. It has no marks on it at all, and aside from one small blemish where the box was opened, it’s mint inside and out.

The Dreamcast FT pad is perfect inside the box, but the box itself shows some of its 20-ish years, with scuffs from sitting on a shelf for a long time. It was like that when I bought it.


Estimated price: $250+ each

Neo Geo

Back before the internet, when nerds connected to a BBS to chat with each other, I was Wombat. When the internet came out, and all the Australians got online, I was one of way too many Wombats. So, having recently picked up a Neo Geo system at a reasonable price, I was neogeoman. I bought a Neo Geo Gold system, boxed, with two sticks and two games and I was in gaming heaven. I never played it, but I had one, and that was cool.

It was a big draw at my game store. I didn’t have many games for it, but Samurai Shodown wowed the crowds. I ended up trading my copy of Art of Fighting 2 for a shooter of some sort – ASO 2, maybe? I barely remember. It was disappointing, and when I moved to Japan I rarely pulled the Neo out of its box. Still bought games for it on occasion, played them a bit.

I finally sold that Gold system, shipped it back to America where it came from. Anyway, I loved the Neo. I still have a half dozen consoles and Pockets and nobori and etc etc. But I never play them.

That Phantom-1 unit was sent to me by the staff at GameGo magazine. Remember them?

Art of Fighting 2 JP

$125
I loved this game so much. The music on Yuri’s stage is still a staple of my game playlists. It’s one of the best early SNK fighters, dunking hard on Fatal Fury, which I never enjoyed, and King of Fighters which I didn’t like at all. This is a Japanese version, I sold my US version many years ago, and bought this for nostalgia when I lived in Japan. These old boxes didn’t age well at all, with the plastic that shrinks, but this one’s no worse than most. Solid B. Manual is A and the cart… I mean, A I guess?

Last Blade JP

$1200
This game is fucking gorgeous. I love to look at it, I love to play it. It’s every bit as good as Samurai Shodown. Better balance a slightly more mature feeling play system. It’s SNK in their heyday, with money and skills just fizzing off everything they touched. Solid A condition. Like new.

Phantom-1 Adaptor

$300
These are old and rare and I have no idea what it’s worth. It’s a great way to play MVS carts on your AES, but apparently it’s not 100% compatible with all systems? I dunno. It worked with all six of mine. YMMV, caveat emptor and all that. A condition. Box is B because the shell I put on it, cut from a cheap Neo cart, was too big for the box and it burst a seam. A little glue will fix it. Soz.

Samurai Shodown 1 US

$250
This was the game that saved SNK from the Street Fighter juggernaut. I got it with my first Neo Geo system and I never let it go. I guess it’s time. Neinhalt Seiger! Tam Tam! Wan-Fu! B condition.

Samurai Shodown 2 JP

$100
I’ve owned a dozen copies of this game. It was cheap in Japan, back in c.2001. It was, if you can believe it, better than the first game. It wasn’t the best balanced game, I could mop the floor with Genjuro vs anyone. =D B condition. Somehow I ended up keeping the copy without a manual. Oops.

Estimated Price:
Samsho 2 JP $50 (Cart Only)
SamSho 1 JP $50 (Cart Only)

Sega Saturn

Ah, the Saturn. Sega’s almost perfect console, the ultimate 2D pixel shuffling powerhouse that panicked its way into the 3D era. I love this system so hard. I had a Japanese friend who let me demo the system in my game store months before it was released in Canada. Virtua Fighter blew us all away. But Sega fucked it all up, with preferential developer treatment, a delayed release that alienated retailers, and a complicated architecture that developers took a long time to figure out.

But gosh, it was the best thing for those in the know. When I moved to Japan I bought up all the Saturn stuff I could find. Development kits, skeleton systems, a handful of Hitachi Hi-Saturn Navi systems with the awesomest console design and flip-up screen.

But none of that mattered, really. I sold off all the games I didn’t really love, and I’m down to a small selection of classics, and a smaller handful of games no one wants but me. ^__^

The List:

  • Galactic Attack US
  • Saturn Wipeout US
  • Tempest 2000 US
  • Saturn Bomberman US
  • Thunder Force V
  • Capcom Gen 1
  • Capcom Gen 2
  • Capcom Gen 3
  • Dracula X
  • Magical Drop III JP
  • Soukyugurentai
  • Wipeout 2097 Saturn PAL

Saturn Bomberman

$550
This is such an incredible game. It’s far and away better than the Super Nintendo Bombermans. It’s fast and colourful and it sounds great and it plays incredibly well. I guess that makes it the last of the great 2D Bomberman games. I bought this new, when I was still running my game store in Canada. It’s in great shape, case is A, CD is a light B.

Galactic Attack

$100
I fucking love Layer Section / Gunlock / RayForce / Galactic Attack. No matter what you call it, it’s a pixel pushing 2D extravaganza. I’ve held on to this since the game store days, and it’s one of the first things I play every time I pull the Saturn out of its undignified storage tub. Condition of case and disc are B, small crack on the cover. Manual is A.

Tempest 2000

$150
I am a huge Tempest fan, I was foolishly into the Jaguar when it launched, and for a long time I was a Jeff Minter fanboy. So I have Tempest 2000 for Saturn. I’ve probably played it twice. =/

Case is a low B. A crack in the middle of the cover. Manual is A, disc is edging into C territory.

Playstation 1

I was at CES when they showed off the Playstation for the first time. Ridge Racer, Toshinden, Polygon Man. Ur Not E.

And close to the launch, Raiden Project. Raiden’s a long time fave of mine, and I held on to every Raiden related thing I ever had. Raiden Project, which I drove an hour to buy at K-Mart, because our suppliers had no stock for our game store, was the first game I ever saw with a rotated mode. Knock your monitor on its side and play in the arcade aspect. It was amazing. Two games, arcade perfect (or near enough). I had two copies, I loved it so much. Sold one years back. This is the last one.

And a couple of years after that, a friend traded me his copy of Raiden DX, which he didn’t enjoy, for my copy of Neo Geo Magician Lord, which I didn’t enjoy. I think we both consider this to be one of the best trades we ever made.

While in Japan I picked up the occasional weird game. Sold a few, kept a few. I was in Japan last year and saw Finger Flashing – an unheard of paper-rock-scissors … Well it’s hard to describe. Anyway it’s rare and Mandarake had a copy for Y88,000. I still have mine.

Playstation had a wicked fun version of DOOM, and Final DOOM. Metal Gear VR Missions was so much more fun than the actual game, but I kept both. And Wipeout! How fucking cool was that, when Sony and Designer’s Republic made Wipeout the defining style of end of the millenium?

Elemental Gearbolt

$450
I always liked the stuff that Working Designs did. They gave a shit, they made deluxe packaging, they localized stuff with style. But of course that just pissed off gamers, even back then, because fuck knows why. It’s tedious to even think about it. But, Elemental Gearbolt, a beautiful game with stunning artwork all over this deluxe release. B tier disc, and some scuffs on the case. A class everything else.

Like so many games, I played it maybe twice.

DOOM

$150
A classic release, sublimely playable on the Playstation, with all that MIPS horsepower inside. We had a blast playing this in my game store, linking two systems together and blowing each other to chunks.

A- box. It doesn’t look new, but it doesn’t have any marks, scratches or anything like that. Just, a slight glowing of wear. The two books inside are A class, flawless. A few pencilled-in codes on the back pages of the manual. B class disc. Flawless on top, normal wear on the bottom.

Wipeout

$30
I was a Psygnosis fan before the Playstation came out. Often just because they had some stunning box art, more than great games. But they always had style oozing out of every pore. And when they brought in Designer’s Republic to do the design for Wipeout (I refuse to spell it with a capital E) the bar was raised so, so much higher. And that soundtrack!

Very good condition, but note the tiny white square above the rating logo. Those squares, and the wide strap holding the manual in place, were added by the person who traded the game in at my store. I think his name was Cory.

A- box, A manual, and B disc.

X68000, FM Towns, MSX

When I moved to Japan, the X68000 was virtually unknown in the West. It took me a couple of years to finally find a system in a Hard Off, and it died several seconds after plugging it in, because of course it did. Over the years I picked up several neat Japanese computers, most of which I’ve long since parted with. But I kept a few of my favourite games.

X68000

The X68k is a favourite. I’ve owned just about every game released for this system at one time or another, and I regret selling them only because those giant plastic boxes looked so unbelievably great on my shelves. But playing them… I mean, most of them were ports. Great ports, for sure! But the effort of hooking the system up and finding the box and opening it and loading the floppies, vs running MAME, I mean… I’ve got ten minutes, I wanna play Galaga ’88. Which will I choose?

These are the last of my X68000 games. I think I left a copy of Gradius II in storage in Japan tho.

Bomberman

Price Unknown
Mint condition. Virtually new. Some minor wear on the edges of the cardboard box. A condition top to bottom. I’ve owned most of the 2D Bomberman games. We used to play it all the time back in Canada, in my game store. Five players blowing stuff up on the SNES or TurboGrafx… Great times!

This is one of the last versions I still have. Not sure what that 2nd disk is all about. Could be a backup, or a save disk, I dunno.

Image Fight

$120 AUD
I love me some shmups and I love me some Irem. Image Fight tho, I never really got on with. Not actually sure why it’s one of the last games I still have. But it’s in A condition! Except for a bit of wear on the paper insert, where the plastic has receded. Maybe that knocks it down to a B for some people. A bit of yellowing on the plastic too, as you can see.

FM Towns

Raiden Densetsu

$250 AUD
Raiden’s always been a favourite. I’ve had them all. Lynx, Jaguar, Arcade, SNES, PC Engine. You name it. Amazing game. And this one, running on the reasonably powerful FM Towns, was quite good too.

Sega Teradrive

Puzzle Construction

$unknown
Now this is a neat thing. The Sega Teradrive, released years too late, was a 286-based IBM computer that was aware of, and could be used to program for, a built-in MegaDrive system. You could run both systems at the same time, and it even had an expansion module to connect to a never shown or released Mega CD. I assume. I worked out the pinout of this connector once, but never compared it to the CD expansion on the regular MegaDrive, so who knows.

Anyway, this might be the only piece of software ever released that could demonstrate this two-system functionality. It allows the user to create rules and tiles on the PC side, to make puzzle games that run on the MegaDrive side.

A condition box and disks, B manual, which shows a bit of wear but no damage or abuse.

Super NES / Super Famicom

By the time the SNES came out in Canada I’d already been playing PC Engine and MegaDrive games for a year or two, and so my loyalties were already decided. And so many of those early games were just rubbish. But then, F-Zero. The sheer feeling of speed made up for so many of the other games that were just… slow and crap. I remember my dad walking in one day while we were playing a rented SNES and F-Zero, and he remarked that it wasn’t that much better looking than the Atari 2600. Dad, no, maybe this one isn’t for you.

And then, Super Mario World. I remember playing Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES, thinking that if the NES was this good, the Super NES was going to be Super good. And it was, it absolutely destroyed Bonk and Sonic. Just the sheer sophistication of it. And let’s not even mention the unbelievable glory that was Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Art.

Anyway, I got into the SNES much later, when I started getting cheaper hardware at my game store. By this time, c. 1998, there were a lot of good games for the system. I’ve already sold most of them, but I’ve got some stuff left…

Puzzle Puyo Puyo, Tokyo Toy Show version

$500 AUD
This is a proto/demo cart from Compile. I bought a bunch of stuff from a guy on Yahoo auctions, who had himself purchased the contents of one of Compile’s offices. It wasn’t, I don’t think, one of the good offices, but I snagged this cart plus a handful of unused/empty carts. I was big into prototype stuff at the time.

Basically new. I dunno if this particular cart was ever used. A tier.

LaserActive Mega-LD

I picked up a LaserActive shortly after DVDs came out, and basically played it like it was a PC Engine. Except it wasn’t a great PC Engine ’cause I couldn’t use my card adaptor to play my JP HuCards on it. So, I traded it off (for a Jaguar, of all things, and a box full of games. Not my best trade.) But I had that itch to play around with PC Engine stuff, so I picked up another one. Eventually I had both MegaLD and LD-ROM modules, and the controllers, and the 3D adaptor, and… I never played it. Never even got to try the 3D unit, but lost it all in the 2011 floods.

But I have two games left.

Pyramid Patrol

Pyramid Patrol… It’s … Fuck, I have no idea what it’s like. I haven’t played it since I got it and only once, and I don’t know if I even played it or if I had the disc before the MegaLD module it required, and I just ran it through my regular LD player and figured out how the scene selection worked (it interlaced the two transitions, and the game displayed either the odd or even lines, depending on the player’s choice).

Anyway, I have the disc.

Don Quixote

Price: $???
I have no idea when I got this disc. It was either back in Canada, or when I lived in Japan. Weirdly, it’s the English version, which seems to be considerably less common than the Japanese game. It also appears to be in the original shrink-wrap, and it appears to basically be brand new. I think I might have the dimmest recollection of playing it once in Japan, back in… c.2003, maybe?

Comes with the shrink wrap, sleeve, obi strip, map, and flawless disc. Absolutely like-new condition (So, A tier) except for the shrink wrap, and a bent corner on the LD sleeve, as you can see. It’s wild, I just… have no memory of picking this up at all.

--NFG
[ Mar 1 2024 ]
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